


The Plaidypus

by GinAndShatteredDreams



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Journal 3, Sleep Deprivation, Young Grunkle Ford, emotional breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 06:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11435520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinAndShatteredDreams/pseuds/GinAndShatteredDreams
Summary: While suffering from sleep deprivation, Ford finds out exactly how one obtains a plaidypus pelt and finds some comfort in an unexpected place.





	The Plaidypus

In a tangle of half-shadows cast in purple, red, green, and blue, stretching from the base of each object on his desk, cast from the glow of every lamp in his study turned to its brightest setting, Stanford's head spun.  The world blurred at the corners of his drooped and swollen eyelids.  "Can't...  Sleep..." he muttered to himself, his hand absently scrawling the words across an already ink-scrawled page of his journal yet leaving no visible trace of his quill's trail.  Every breath felt as if he drew it through a mountainous dune of sand piled upon him, pressing against his chest and burning his eyes and lungs.  His head lulled forward and, for a moment, the world dipped into blissfully numb darkness.  
  
"No!  No!  Please don't!" he jolted upright, his fingers mangling the feathered end of the quill he...  No.  Bill had nearly jammed into the back of his hand.  
  
A shiver rippled through his limbs and he pulled his coat tightly around himself, the thin cloth doing little to dispel the chill radiating from within him.  He longed for the warmth of a blanket, for the rest he needed to restore his ability to perform basic tasks like breathing and regulating his own body temperature but, if he gave in...  He shuddered at the thought.  
  
With wobbly arms braced against a creaking desk, he hoisted himself from his chair.  He swayed through a dizzy haze of imagined doors and furniture his mind had misplaced, searching for the kitchen but finding himself (luckily) in the bathroom instead.  
  
A splash of frigid water to the face cleared his vision and retrieved the proper layout of his home from the grasp of his hallucinations long enough to get him to the coffee pot and the stale sludge within.  He didn't bother with a cup, didn't even cringe when the stench assaulted his nose nor when the unnaturally cool probably-not-coffee-anymore hit the back of his throat.  He was too numb, too vacant and anxious all at once to care.  
  
"Food..." he mumbled, hoping his temporary bandage of eating instead of sleeping might hold him over just a little longer.    
  
A banana and two sandwiches later, he found himself staring out the window uncertain if the sun really existed at all or if the golden light was no more than another vision his mind had conjured.  Under the rustle of branches above, his eyelids slid shut but, this time, the world did not fall into darkness but rather, into an orange and red glow.  He stared at the light filtering through his eyelids, focusing on it if only to stop the burning dryness for a moment while cautious to evade sleep's disarming embrace.  He shook his head, reopening his eyes to a world cast in tints of green, blinking until his vision readjusted to the brown of bare trees and piles of pine needles and leaves.  
  
"Air.  Air...  I just...  Need fresh air," he reached forward, swinging the window open against the icy northern breeze, "I should...  I need...  Need to get out and get some air."  
  
He didn't remember traveling so far out into the forest nor how long it had been since he left his cabin.  Judging by the sun, it had either been less than an hour or more than 24.  Amidst the crunch of dried pine needles beneath his feet and the odd rustle of bushes and branches, a gruff, throaty sound rattled among the towering trunks.  He paused, unsure if he'd actually heard anything at all.  "Probably more hallucinations," he thought.  He lifted his foot to continue his aimless wandering but just as his boot crunched down on a pine cone, the sound rumbled through the trees once more, louder and clearer than before.  
  
He calmed the shiver and the pounding of his heart, assuring himself it must be the lumberjacks, probably friends of Dan or perhaps even the men who had built his cabin.  Yes, it was nothing more than their laughter and from the sound of it, someone must have told a spectacularly hilarious joke.  He chuckled to himself, almost wishing he could join them in their merriment for a moment...    
  
"Wait?  Why can't I?  Perhaps I could...  Listen in for a moment.  They'd never even know I'm here, right?" he thought.  
  
And so, he crept closer to the roaring laughter, keeping himself low to the ground, well hidden behind the bushes and felled trees.  He parted the branches of a nearby bush, peering through into a clearing where one man stood, his belly shaking beneath red and black plaid as he seemed to laugh at nothing.  Carefully, the man stepped back, his vision fixed on a spot straight ahead of him.  He edged behind a tree just as a small, plump creature waddled into the clearing, squawking lightly and rolling playfully every few steps.  
  
"A plaidypus!" Ford thought.  He hadn't seen one since the day he and Fiddleford had stopped for lunch during a hike and one had stolen part of Fiddleford's sandwich.  They were cute little creatures, he'd thought, but it had troubled him that their pelts were apparently prized by the lumberjacks of Gravity Falls.  How exactly did they obtain those pelts?  He was...  Almost sure he didn't want to know but certain he was about to find out.  At least, unless he did something about-  
  
He winced as the creature gave a disturbed squawk and disappeared into a pit filled to the brim with sawdust, leaving little more than a poof of powder where it had fallen.   
  
Before he could think, before he could so much as make a sound, the creature's beak popped up and a wad of pine needles slammed into its face.  Ford thought he should look away, thought he should do something to help, but his curiosity kept his eyes fixed on the scene, his body frozen in place.  He couldn't believe his eyes, thought it had to be a hallucination for sure when the creature sneezed so hard that it propelled itself a good four feet up and out of the hole leaving its entire pelt behind.  
  
"Fas-" Ford slapped his hand over his mouth, lowering his shout to barely a murmur, "cinating."  
  
He watched with wide eyes as the lumberjack lifted the pelt and brushed the sawdust from it with calloused fingertips.  "Heh," the man muttered, examining the pelt's size, "This will make a perfect tea cozy."  He folded the pelt twice and tucked it inside a leather bag before his heavy footfalls trailed off into the distance.  
  
"Hmm," Ford mused to himself, "That did look like it would make a fine tea.."  His thoughts trailed off as light sobs caught his attention.  He scanned the clearing his breath catching as he saw the plaidypus crouched on the ground, huddled in on itself and hiding behind its front flippers, its hairless body trembling.  
  
"Um..." Ford paused, wondering whether to leave things be or if he should...  Before he could consciously decide, he was on his feet and stepping cautiously out into the clearing.  He wasn't sure if it was out of sympathy, desire to help, or pure curiosity and a selfish desire to get a closer look at the creature, or perhaps, simply a delirious reaction to his sleep deprivation but he found himself inching closer and closer.     
  
"Hey," he whispered, "hey there little one...  Um...  It's okay.  Everything's going to be okay."  He knelt and held his hand down, offering it for the plaidypus to inspect.  It sniffed at it, sending a nervous tremor through Ford as his instincts nearly talked him into jerking his hand away before the creature noticed one too many fingers.  He sighed to himself, about to give in to the growing certainty that the creature wanted nothing to do with him, that he'd drive it away like he had with everyone else in his-  
  
He gasped as the creature's peach-fuzz face rubbed against his hand.  He fell to a seated position numbed by awe and exhaustion, staring at the plaidypus's tear-streaked cheeks and wondering when exactly his own had become so damp.  "There, there...  It...  It's going to be alright...  Wait...  Wait, what are you...?" He protested, somewhat from fear and somewhat from objection to the gesture as the creature crawled up onto his lap and pressed its chilled body against his chest.  Ford sighed and gave in, "Alright...  fine..."  He returned the plump creature's hug sharing what little warmth he had to offer with it.  "You're going to be okay.  You're...  You're not...  Alone."  
  
He wasn't sure if he was talking to the plaidypus or to himself.  Either way, he was glad to have the company, if only for a moment.  As the minutes passed, it seemed content to stay in his arms, softly crying and, honestly, he was content to do the same, his mind so jumbled that no single thought could present itself clearly.  His failures and follies, Bill's betrayal, the loss of his best friend, the brother he hadn't spoken to in far too long, the mother he missed and the father whom he'd failed to impress seemed like distant, unrecognizable islands on a sea of blinding, white mist that spilled from his mind and rolled down his cheeks.  
  
At least an hour passed before the creature stirred.  Ford loosened his arms, allowing it the freedom to leave if it chose but it snuggled closer, burying it's head into his coat and against his stubbly chin.  "Everything is alright, little one," he whispered, his hand petting its back as if it was a cat.  He didn't know what came over him, whether it was some instinct or if he'd dipped into sleep just enough to lose control of himself to himself, but, either way, the light kiss he brushed against the plaidypus's forehead was certainly not something Bill would have forced him to do, as much as part of him wished he could say it was.  Yet, like some sort of fairytale magic, the kiss seemed to stop the plaidypus's crying.  It sighed and curled up in his lap, falling asleep for a moment.  
  
He continued petting it, a growing bristly feeling brushing against his fingertips more and more with each pass.  
  
"Amazing.  Your fur is already starting to grow back.  At this rate, you'll have a full coat again before winter...  Possibly before the end of the day."  
  
The plaidypus lifted its head and looked up at him, nodding as if to thank him before crawling off of his lap.  
  
"Oh, you're feeling better?  Good.  That's...  Good," He said, nodding back, "I suppose you need to get back to your home now.  You um...  You take care of yourself, alright, little one?"  
  
He swore it nodded again before waddling away, leaving him kneeling alone in the clearing.  "I...  Suppose I should get back to the cabin now too...  Or maybe..." he wondered to himself, "maybe I should go to the diner for a bit...  Get some fresh coffee..."  
  
By the next day, he'd convinced himself he'd hallucinated the whole thing.  He'd assured himself that the redness in his eyes, the puffy soreness of his cheeks, and the lingering, thumping headache must be from lack of sleep, certainly not from sharing an emotional breakdown with a plaidypus.  No, he'd simply wandered over to the diner, freaked himself out a bit, and ended up sending a postcard to his brother asking for help.  
  
He was certain of it until he stepped out onto the porch and found a black and red plaidypus pelt folded neatly at his feet.


End file.
